


A Night At The Opera

by fictorium



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Adultery, Boss/Employee Relationship, F/F, Hair-pulling, Operas, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:34:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7371151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cat has a date at the opera but a useless husband. Thank God Kara is there to save the day... and finally stake her claim on the boss she's crazy about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night At The Opera

**Author's Note:**

> This for some reason deals with a bunch of other specific prompts I got - Cat cheating on a useless husband who doesn't deserve her, public sex, and sex in formalwear. Don't say I don't listen to the contents of my askbox!

Cat eyes the thinning crowd with her typical impatience, well aware that the five-minute call has been made and she should be taking her seat. Which she would be happy, if not thrilled to do in the name of taking her weight off these damn shoes. The Isabel Marant heels might not be the most precarious that she’s strutted around in, but the pinch from only having them sent over from Selfridges two hours ago is already fraying Cat’s temper.

The high arches of the floral hall loom above her, the creamy metal like bones with rain lashing against the glass between them. Cat shivers just a little, the weather on this side of the pond leeching into her bones so that even indoors she feels faintly damp. She’ll be glad to get back to National City and its permanent sunshine, just as soon as she’s done wresting the most troublesome parts of the British press out of Rupert’s control. 

She knocks back the second Black Swan bellini that wasn’t actually supposed to be for her, and by the time she sets the glass back on the ledge, Kara has appeared in front of her. Dressed in the lilac Elie Saab that Cat rejected earlier for draping too loosely, on Kara it traces every curve like it’s been sculpted directly onto her body, and the beaded crystals shimmer in the soft light of the Opera House champagne bar. It contrasts beautifully with Cat’s own darker gown, the midnight blue of a late evening storm, and not for the first time Cat wonders just how far into the future Kara can see.

“Ms Grant, I am so sorry-”

“Where is he?” Cat snaps. “Let me guess, by the time you found him he was already under a table somewhere? Or had the strippers already arrived?”

“He said to tell you he couldn’t get away after all. The Duke was very insistent-”

“Never marry a man for his pedigree, Keira,” Cat sighs. “Much like dogs, you’ll find that all that inbreeding leads to weakness.” She doesn’t feel like dwelling on the fact that she’d married the idiot for his title and his international profile, but most of all to stem the tide of inappropriate attraction towards the assistant 25 years her junior. The same shimmering assistant that stood before her now, a picture of concern. 

“I won’t,” Kara promises. “But I know how much you were looking forward to this, and I’ve never been to the real opera… not Covent Garden real, so I thought maybe I could keep you company? Unless you want to go back to the house, I mean I would understand. It’s a really nice house.” 

Cat smirks at how starstruck Kara still is by everything, including her Chelsea townhouse with its picturesque view of the Thames. It’s almost enough to make Cat want to visit more than her habitual two or three times a year.

“We can stay,” she decides. “It’s about time I exposed you to some of the finer things in life. I’ll end up with fewer Chipotle lunches that way.”

For a moment it looks like Kara is going to argue the merits of her lunch selections, but it’s been almost two years now and the girl doesn’t make mistakes like that anymore. Six months into that spell Cat had accepted Robert’s proposal in the closest she’s ever been to desperation, and it only took six more for him to start letting her down. This trip back to his homeland was supposed to straighten him out, to show something like commitment on her part. Instead he’s off with his university buddies, and Cat is saved only by the consideration of her assistant once more.

As they take the private stairs to the Royal Box, Kara places a gentle hand at Cat’s elbow, steering without pushing in the slightest. Cat allows herself to savor the contact for a moment when they pause on the steps for the usher to open the door and draw back the curtain. It’s been so long since anyone other than Carter has touched her this carefully, since a touch wasn’t something to fend off with irritation.

Kara gasps again as they step into the confines of the box, hardly any distance at all from the vast stage. At Grand Tier level it affords a tremendous view, of the bustle in the orchestra seating below them, and the twinkling lights and settling sounds of the balconies above them. Plush red velvet surrounds them, the curtains and the chairs of the box replicated in the rows that fill the house. Gold catches the warm glow of the house lights, something Cat usually finds gaudy, but not here. Not in Paris, either.

It pains her to admit it, because her subscription to the National City Opera is a concession to her mother’s overbearing snobbery, but somewhere along the way Cat has fallen in love with the form. She doesn’t go into raptures over Verdi like her erstwhile husband, and honestly she’s got little patience for Wagner, but tonight it’s La Bohème. The purists might consider it a lesser work - too accessible - but Cat hasn’t once seen a production that didn’t make her sob harder than the end of Working Girl could ever hope to. 

And as for Kara? Cat isn’t sure the girl even needs the orchestra to strike up, she’s already enraptured. Clutching her purse to her chest, she’s drinking in every detail like Cat might throw her out at any moment; to be fair, that kind of behavior is not without precedent. But how could Cat disrupt this Christmas morning moment now? Especially when Kara’s enthusiasm is distracting from her own abandonment, even going so far as to coax the beginnings of a fond smile. 

“We should sit,” Cat announces, and she takes her seat without noticing the one next to it has been pushed a little too close. It’s only when Kara’s thigh brushes her own that they notice the proximity, making Kara shuffle aside as if she’s been scalded. Cat, weakened by the latest embarrassment, almost reaches for Kara’s leg to stop her, but she folds her hands in her lap instead. 

The house lights dim fully at last, and Cat fixes her attention on the plush red curtain that separates them from a few hours of heartbreak. Kara sighs in contentment, and Cat wonders why she should focus on a single note, when she could replay that soft sound in her mind instead.

* * *

 

He shows up at the first intermission, because luck shines on Cat Grant about as often as the sun shines on London.

The scene is brief and predictably vicious. No one will write an aria about it, but there’s some satisfaction in the firm way Kara steps in to grab his wrist at an opportune moment. Cat almost wishes Kara hadn’t, just to see if he really would have dared to follow through. He’s ushered out by two obliging members of staff, suitably warned to find anywhere to sleep tonight but Cat’s house. She’s already flipping through divorce attorneys in her mental rolodex. Kara will have to find out who specializes in stripping the aristocracy of their assets.

Kara’s still trembling when they take their seats for the second act. Or perhaps she’s perfectly still and the trembling is all Cat’s own. Regardless, it stops the minute Kara lays a hand on Cat’s, pressing it against her thigh. Cat breathes in time with the calls of _arranci_ and _datteri,_ and that’s enough to let her get lost for just a while.

* * *

 

“He doesn’t deserve you,” Kara hisses as the curtain falls on the second act. Their drinks are waiting in the small saloon, but Cat isn’t thirsty at all. She remains on the plush velvet on her seat, even when Kara stands and begins pacing in the confined space.

“In your professional opinion?” It’s a weak deflection at best, not at all worthy of Cat Grant’s famous Teflon interrogation manner. 

“What’s professional about that?” Kara counters, chin lifting in a momentary defiance. She waves her hand towards the door in Cat’s signature style, though her fingers lack the fluttering quality. “Showing up late, wasted, yelling loud enough for half of London to hear. He embarrasses you.” 

“Nothing embarrasses me,” Cat warns. “Not even an assistant who dresses like her own grandmother. Tonight being a welcome exception, of course.”

“I just…”

“Go on,” Cat urges, and there’s a crackle of danger in the air that the opera’s staging has lacked so far. “Ask me. I can tell you’ve been dying to since the moment I accepted his proposal.” 

“It’s none of my business,” Kara declares, but her teeth worry at her bottom lip for a moment. “Did you need me to fetch you anything, Miss Grant?” 

“There’s nothing I need that you can do for me, Keira,” Cat sighs. “I should call Carter. Try not to wrestle anyone else to the ground while I’m out in the hall.”

* * *

 

Kara leans in to whisper as the curtain rises again.

“Fine. Why did you marry him? You could have anyone you wanted so… yeah. Why him?”

Cat bows her head, because it’s a question she’s been asking herself every day for months. The obvious response to anyone else is that the timing was right to distract from an idle crush that might have become a lawsuit. What she’s been even more reluctant to admit - to anyone but her rotating cast of therapists - is that the latest coup attempt from the board had rankled far more than they should. Coupled with a bitchy red carpet comment on her being ‘post-sexual’, and the iron-clad confidence Cat faced the world with had taken a considerable dent.

Insecurity is an infrequent visitor in Cat’s life, but on top of all that she’d been losing her ‘most powerful’ mantle to Supergirl, even if her grip on the media has prevented anyone from explicitly saying so just yet. It’s surely just a matter of time. There’s no way to confess all this to Kara, not here at least. So when she leans in to murmur, it’s hardly an answer at all.

“I needed a husband. Any husband. He happened to ask while I was looking.”

It’s true that her increased profile and ensuing international splash has reinvigorated Cat’s personal brand. Even Lois and her exes have stopped making pitying comments since her single status was obliterated in a society wedding that rivaled Wills and Kate for pomp and circumstance. Anyone else might have been overwhelmed, but for a few hours Cat had allowed herself to enjoy it. A spot of revulsion at the actual wedding night had been a small price to pay. And marrying a man who can’t handle his drink certainly lets her off the hook in that regard. 

Even her mother approves of the match. If that isn’t the truly disturbing proof of an absolutely awful idea, Cat has no idea what could be. It’s Robert this and Robert that, and wouldn’t it be nice to show off a son-in-law who actually went to Oxford, darling? They’re welcome to each other; Cat has no need for such unreliable arm candy anymore. 

“You deserve so much better,” Kara is leaning again, and this time her lips ghost across Cat’s cheek due to a slight shift in her position. Cat’s breath catches in her throat, almost choking her for a second, because she’s been so careful to avoid or mitigate accidental contact like that. “And you were wrong before.”

“I’m never wrong,” Cat mutters through gritted teeth, because Kara’s palm is flat against Cat’s thigh now, and the slit in the dress makes it bare skin on bare skin. The contact is enough to shock, barely contained electricity leaping between them in frantic bursts. 

“You said I can’t do anything you need,” Kara persists, and this time her lips press against Cat’s cheek quite deliberately, a tiny gasp trapped between them. “But I would do anything you needed. You must know that by now?” 

“Keira-”

“If you need to call me by that stupid, _wrong_ name,” Kara persists, barely withdrawing from Cat’s side. “I can do that. Tell me what you need, please?”

“We’re supposed to be watching this,” Cat nods towards the stage. The third act is well underway.

“I can see in the mirror behind you,” Kara answers right back. “In case you were worried about my cultural education.”

“I’m not.”

Kara offsets the snark with a more deliberate kiss, this time placed with purpose on the ticklish spot just beneath Cat’s ear. With a glance to the auditorium, Cat notes quickly that they’re all but invisible to the boxes opposite. Boxes that are mercifully empty, with the show in the middle of a semi-popular run. She’s never been so grateful to miss out on star names or hype-generating restaging.

“If this is some misguided sense of pity…” Cat can’t help but lend voice to thought. She squeezes her eyes closed, not daring to do anything but hold her breath when Kara freezes. But then soft palms are pressing on Cat’s cheeks and the soft entreaty of “look at me” is more than she has power to resist.

“This is not pity,” Kara tells her, blue eyes sparkling with the bouncing reflection of the stage lights. “This is two years of telling myself no, of telling myself that I’m not good enough for someone like you. But if that jackass can waltz into your life, then I guarantee you I can be a hundred times better for you.”

“You’re my assistant-“

“So fire me. Promote me. Keep everything exactly as it is but we’ll throw in a few afternoon delights as well. It’s up to you, Cat.”

 “Afternoon delights?” Cat snorts. “Really?”

 “You know what I mean,” Kara’s bravado is starting to slip, her blush visible even in the shadows of the opera box. “I just can’t stand by and watch this a moment longer. Not when I’m pretty sure you want this, too.”

 “When did you get so sure of yourself?” Cat demands, but she’s gripping gently at Kara’s wrist, running a thumb over the back of her hand. “Your timing is awful, anyway. You know I have drinks after this with-“

 “Oh we don’t have to leave to start this.” Kara’s grin is almost wicked, but Cat doesn’t get to see it for long because their mouths are meeting, finally, in a desperate kiss. “Aren’t you glad I didn’t arrange to have any of your fancy London friends join you for the performance?”

 “Kara.” A warning? A plea? Even Cat isn’t sure. She’s sure Kara takes it as an invitation, judging by the way her hands start to wander. It’s a little too easy for Kara to shift Cat and her chair further into the recesses of the box, shielding them even further from stage and audience alike.

 “I’ve been so patient,” Kara murmurs, her kisses now peppering Cat’s jawline, making her back arch and her head tilt back to grant Kara more access. A lazy trailing of fingers across Cat’s thigh, first over the fabric and then nails dragged across the bare skin exposed by the high slit on the dress. “Do you have any idea?” Kara asks, before a lingering kiss that ends with her biting down on Cat’s bottom lip. “What it’s like to see you every day, see how amazing you look, and not be able to touch you?”

 “You could have asked,” Cat counters.

 “You could have offered.” Kara sounds firm. “Who would go after a newlywed, anyway? It’s only because I see what he’s really like that I know you’re not happy, but you’ve been way too convincing to the rest of the world. That makes me so mad.”

 “If this is your idea of punishment, then I’ve been a very bad girl,” Cat teases, tugging at Kara’s hair where it’s pinned in a half-hearted French twist, making short work of letting it down. Of course, she freezes in case that’s her secret revealed, but Cat thinks they’ve already laid enough bare between them tonight. That conversation can definitely wait.

 “I don’t want to punish you,” Kara corrects when the moment of fear passes. Her other hand is splayed over Cat’s ribs, charting a course for the plunging neckline of her dress, slipping beneath it without even a moment’s resistance. “I want to treat you the way you deserve. It’s no coincidence you’re in the Royal Box right now, Cat. They don’t call you a queen for nothing.”

 “Flattery will-“ Cat loses her thought for a moment, gasping at Kara’s gentle pinch of her nipple. “Get you just about everywhere.”

 “I noticed.”

 “You’re not worried about being caught?” Cat can’t deny the thrill fluttering in her own chest, the metallic taste on her tongue that Kara’s next kiss wipes away. “So bold.”

 “You make me bold,” Kara confesses, and Cat gets the impression she’s talking about more than a little fondling at the opera. “You make me brave, all the time. And you don’t even know you’re doing it.”

 “Won’t stop me taking credit,” Cat admits, but she’s tired of talking. She wants more of Kara’s mouth, Kara’s surprisingly coordinated hands. The girl who stumbles into furniture like the world is one big bumper car track, has both rhythm and precision when it comes to touching Cat. Each caress is in counterpoint to a flick or pinch that suggests Sunny Danvers might have a capacity for roughness that her entire vanilla demeanor has been hiding all this time.

 That mouth is on Cat’s neck again, then thank god for dresses that expose so much collarbone, because the swirl of Kara’s tongue in the hollows there has Cat whimpering like she’s never experienced pleasure before. Novelty isn’t something she expects to feel at this stage, but there goes Kara again with the surprises.

 The score is building to another emotional crescendo, but Cat is lost despite knowing every note. She can’t possibly focus on Mimi overhearing Marcello and Rodolfo, not when Kara is slipping to her knees on the plush carpet, hiking Cat’s dress up her legs in careful increments, kissing every inch of skin that she exposes. This is the point of no return, where indecency charges and mocking headlines flash into her mind, but Cat could no sooner stop than she could hand over her empire to Lois Lane.

Her thong is no match for Kara’s fingers, torn off in a display of want that only increases Cat’s desperation. How long since she let anyone desire her this openly? How long since she didn’t care where, when, or how? If the way Kara looks at her every day, those pining glances that Cat tells herself can’t be real no matter how often they happen, is a spark, then this is the fuse on a whole arsenal of dynamite.

She tugs at Kara’s hair, gratified when the result is Kara moaning open-mouthed against Cat’s thigh. A moment later, when Cat pulls more sharply, Kara’s lips are covering Cat’s clit, and the vibration of Kara’s gasp is enough to have Cat arching up off the seat against her.

“Calm down,” Kara urges, pulling back for just a moment and grasping Cat’s hips tightly enough to bruise. “Do you really think I’m going to rush this? After all this waiting?” She places a mocking kiss in the same spot before shifting on her knees a little, the better to start licking long, slow stripes through the gathering wetness between Cat’s legs.

“We have to be careful,” Cat murmurs as Kara alternates the flicks of her tongue, laying bare every part of Cat that she caresses with fast strokes one moment, deliberate ones the next. Kara dips her tongue inside with short jabs that make Cat grab a fistful of long blonde hair again, and Kara hums in appreciation. She wants to be handled a little roughly, and Cat’s more than willing to help with that.

Then Kara is lifting Cat’s leg over her shoulder, all the better to be completely exposed. Where her focus was broad until that point, now she lasers in on Cat’s clit, licking around it in tormenting circles, before trills with the very tip of her tongue have Cat almost sobbing with the need to come. Kara’s hands slip beneath Cat’s ass, squeezing and pulling her tight against Kara’s mouth for a finale that Puccini himself couldn’t have matched for sheer emotional release.

Cat’s shaking when Kara moves to hold her, pulling her close in the shadows of their semi-public sanctuary, the dying notes of Act III sinking into her consciousness just as Kara moves back into her own seat, pulling Cat into her lap and letting her breathe ragged breaths against Kara’s shoulder.

“God,” Cat rasps when her words return. “Kara, that was…”

“Did you think that was all?” Kara sounds faintly amused, her chin and her lips still glistening in the warm glow of the house lights. Her fingers slip between Cat’s legs again, retracing the path of her tongue but far more quickly she presses inside this time. Cat panics, rigid with the difference now they’re not shrouded in darkness, tensed against the fresh surge of arousal that has her at Kara’s mercy a moment later.

As relentless as she is chipper and organised, Kara finds Cat’s g-spot with the instant accuracy she brings to her life every day, strong fingers stroking and twisting according to Cat’s reaction, two soon becoming three because _fuck_ Cat is wet and it’s apparently no trouble at all to add a fourth. Cat is scratching weakly at Kara’s back, no doubt leaving runs in the delicate fabric of her dress but finding it hard to care. Kara coaxes and thrusts and when she tells Cat to touch her own clit, there’s no question that Cat will do exactly as she’s asked.

With no music to cover them - just the hubbub of voices discussing the production or chatting about _who cares_ \- Cat has to hold the sounds she gave so freely before in her throat. It’s making it hard to breathe, but Kara knows just when to pause and let Cat gather herself, before plunging back down that relentless road to more, harder, happier. The final intermission seems to last an ice age or two, but just when Cat thinks she can’t contain herself a moment longer, the orchestra strikes up and the lights dim at last.

And oh those men might be singing mournfully for Mimi and her return, but Cat is so far gone, clutching at Kara as she comes again, almost passing out from the relief of it. She’s boneless and trembling in Kara’s arms, and a thousand people or more could discover them at any second, but even with her heart thundering in her chest, Cat has never felt safer.

“Thank you,” Kara murmurs as she nuzzles at Cat’s hairline, pressing a tender kiss that belies the power of what she’s done tonight. “Thank you for letting me.”

“All this and you’re thanking me?” Cat unwraps herself from Kara, sitting heavily in her own chair after attempting to straighten out her dress. “Christ, Kara. You’re going to be the death of me.”

“I hope not,” Kara says with a shy grin, reaching for Cat’s hand while casually licking her still-wet fingers on the other. “God, if we’d made this much noise in the orchestra section we’d be barred by now.”

“Deported, probably,” Cat agrees, the grin contagious despite her best efforts at returning to cool and unaffected. “You know you have to cancel drinks now, right?”

“I do?”

“Thirty seconds from now we’re getting up and walking out of here,” Cat feels control slip back into place like a favorite sweater. “I’m taking you home, where the locks I assume have already been changed?” Kara nods, having organized everything even before the unfortunate scene earlier. Anticipation, her underrated superpower. “And there, in the privacy of what might just become my favourite home, I am going to do all the things to you that I’ve been waiting two long years to see happen. Is that okay with you?”

Kara nods hard enough to snap a human neck, but luckily that’s not an issue for her.

“What about the show?” Kara asks. “How does it end?”

“This one?” Cat glances towards the stage. “In tragedy, misery, and some notes that will break your heart.”

“What about this one?” Kara gestures between the two of them.

“Kara, don’t skip ahead,” Cat scolds. “We’re only getting started.”


End file.
